Through a Glass, Darkly
by Antigone.Rose
Summary: "For now we see through a glass, darkly."   A study of Rose and the Doctor in a different light.


_A/N: So, I struggled with posting this one…it's a bit dark, see. I dunno, I decided to look at the Doctor's relationship with Rose in a different light and this is the result._

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><p>"For now we see through a glass, darkly."<p>

- 1 Corinthians 13:12

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><p>She's bright as a sun as she explodes into being before him. He asks her to come with him and she says no. He should have left her there, left her to be ordinary and normal and undamaged, but he was always a right bastard when it came down to it, so her asked her again. She said yes, of course. She was always going to say yes. He hates himself for it, but he hates the loneliness just a little bit more.<p>

She's a bright star, a shard of light that pierces the murky dark of his soul. He feels himself leeching off her, peeling her humanity away piece by tiny piece. He feeds off the light she gives him like a worshipper feeds off of a deity. But, she's just a _girl_, a nineteen-year-old shop girl who's never been away from London before. She gives him what he wants from her so he rewards her with stars and words that sound a little like love. He hates every time that she thanks him for taking her with him, but her hates the alternative even more.

They whirl around the galaxies and she glows brighter and brighter until it hurts his very eyes to look at her. She teeters on the edge of catching fire and he teeters on the edge of insanity. Not again, he wants to beg the universe, not again. What started out as a selfish fascination has turned into something else, something that is hot and painful. She has grown from his luminary into his friend and now it terrifies him. He starts to mean the words that he says and he hates himself for it. It was always so much easier not to care.

She is no longer a possession in his eyes. Now, all of the sudden, she is a person. A person with feelings and needs. He is scared of her, and for a while, he feels something dark and unpleasant growing at the corners of his soul. But, she burns it away without even meaning too…he is more enthralled with her than ever and begins to feel something that is more than just fascination…something that might be love.

Not a love of the self-sacrificing and pure kind, though. This love is unhealthy. An obsession that keeps him awake at night with her face burned into the back of his eyes. Some days, he hates her. Some days, he wants her dead. Some days…he almost wants to kill her.

He never could. If she were dead, then he'd be alone again. He's decided that he rather likes having a companion. It's been a while, but the feelings behind it are different this time around. He holds her to a different standard than he held _them_ to…she is far brighter, far more brilliant. He neglects to tell her that there have been others, even if he thinks she probably guesses it sometimes.

She is his. In every way that matters, she belongs to him and only him. He keeps her away from her family and the people who love her because he is afraid that they'll see what she refuses to. The darkness in his eyes, the possessive way that he holds her hand. He is dangerous, he knows it. She shouldn't be here with him. He's killing her bit by bit, destroying the girl that she was and fashioning a new one in his ideal image. One that glows with the light of time, sings with the songs of the universe, one who would never and could never leave him. He hates himself as he chips off tiny pieces of her and replaces them with shards of his broken soul. But, he can't stop. She is his for now and for always.

They travel further and further away from what is comfortable and what is familiar and he hears the words of the warning long before she does. But, of course, he doesn't say anything to her because she is only human and, therefore, limited to see only what is directly in front of her. He should be grateful for that, honestly. If she looked any harder, she'd see him for what he was and leave.

The feelings he has for her, no matter that they're perverse, distorted and obsessive, burn strong in his mind and bloom into something in his hearts. She smiles at him as they run through a thousand stories on a thousand worlds and he is content for a time. But, then, she finally hears the obstinate clang of the cloister bell that has been chiming since he met her and they fragile peace that they've built together shatters.

Something has been pulling the strings this entire time. That thought grates at him, mostly because he is the one who is usually the puppet master in the grand scheme of things. That someone else has taken up that mantle disturbs him and he pulls her on through time and space to find the links of the chain that have gone missing.

He watches her as they run through time and he is fascinated that she is still here. He took her without any reason other than blind curiosity and she is still here, running beside him. He knows that she loves him, in the frail and selfish way that humans love one another. He finds it both amusing and endearing, the way that she holds him special in her heart. He wonders if she'll ever understand what love really means, but then he strikes that thought down. Love, real love, the kind that moves the sun and the other stars, is more than she's capable of. Love is what he did for Gallifrey. Love…is more than she could ever begin to comprehend.

In the end, when the game has been played and all exits have been sealed off, he deicdes that he won't let her die beside him. She's interesting, too interesting to waste in an end game that he'll find a way out of. He always has. It might cost a regeneration or two, but he really doesn't care at this point. He stopped caring a long time ago, after Gallifrey burnt itself out in a sky that was bloody red. He really doesn't want to watch her burn herself out, as beautiful as it might be. He feels the explosion building in her heart, so he sends her home.

But, she comes back, of course. She was always going to come back. She holds the time vortex in her soul and he feels as if they've come full circle, one of them omnipotent and all-knowing, the other a pandering little fool. Its funny, really. Here she is, alight with the glow of forever, his perfect creation and all he wants is to entiguish the light that is burning her humanity away. What he feels for her…it's far from love, honestly, but it's so much closer than he's ever come before.

He watches as she shines hotter and brighter every second, bursting into flames of possibility and impossiblity. She creates herself for him inside her own mind and he knows, as annoying and degrading as it might be, he has to save her. She only human, after all. The time vortex is killing her even as she creates her own story and flings the words Bad Wolf across space and time.

He kisses her because he feels like he should and their story is mostly complete. The masochistic fascination that he has for her shines brightly through the muddy darkness of his mind and he almost laughs as he feels the edges of his being slipping into the void. It all happened so fast…a part of him is still lingering in that basement where, against all of his better judgement, he grabbed her hand and told her to run. Now, he's dying, fading fast into the black.

Her never loved her. He hates himself for it. She is still his guiding light, his own personal star, but love…love is what he did for Gallifrey. Maybe, he likes her. Maybe, he is fascinated with her. And maybe, just maybe, some other him in some other time could love her…but he doubts it. The girl that he might have loved died a long time ago, between the word run and the time when he asked twice. Then, she was beautiful. Now, she's ruined, a broken clock still ticking out a phantom beat. He broke her and now they both wobble between explosion and insanity.

He hates himself for everything he did to her. And then, he dies, leaving her to a stranger with his name and an unfamilar face.

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><p>He cannot believe what he has done to the girl in front of him. That is his first thought as he springs forth from the void. His last regeneration was disgusting, now that he thinks about it. He resolves in the moment that he will never be like the dark prescense that still hangs, phantom-like, over his thoughts. But can he really blame the disturbed soul that hovers inside his mind? He, after all, was the one who saw Gallifrey burn…<p>

_(Love…is what I did for Gallifrey)_

He dissmisses the words as the ravings of a madman and turns to the girl who he was so entranced with. She's pretty, he supposes, in a normal, human sort of way. But…she's less than he expected. She's just a shop girl. His last regeneration made her seem like she was so much more than that. Like she was special, or something.

Still, he's friendly to her. They make it through their first adventure together and he finds that her absolute faith in him is endearing. He likes it when she trusts him blindly, it makes him feel like he's brilliant. So, he showers her, his blonde ego-boost, with crooked smiles and winks and hugs and compliments to make sure that she'll stay.

She does. He knows, soon, very soon after he regenerates, that she loves him just as much, if not more, than she loved his predecessor. That, in itself, is the ultimate ego-boost and he starts, just a little, to love her for the way that she makes him feel. He feels 200 again, running through the stars like a madman and never, ever slowing down. He begins to see her like his last self did, an impossibly burning star that guides him on.

His definition of love begins to shift bit by bit and he is more human with each passing day. But, that isn't right, it isn't healthy. Soon, she means more to him than saving people and putting things right. He isn't the Doctor anymore. He is just another fool who believes in the lie that is love.

Nothing makes sense except for the fact that she is here and she is beautiful and she is his. He loves her childish promises of forever, even if he knows that they will never be. She will have caught fire long before forever has come to pass and will burn herself into nothing as infernos tend to do. He hopes that he will be there to see it. It will be glorious, he is sure.

He has long since lost all faith in things that are unseen, fate and destiny, good and evil, heaven and hell. She hasn't and that is one of the things that fascinates him so. He begins to take solace in her faith, to feed off of it the same way that the last him fed off her open soul. In her mind, he knows, he is absolute good. It makes him incontrovertably sad and happy at the same time. If he is what she sees as the ultimate good, then there really is no pure good anywhere. There is darkness in his soul and madness in his smile and he knows it. He wonders how long it will take her to see it and if she will run when she does.

Sometimes, he wants her gone. Not for himself, but for her. He knows that in the end, an end that draws nearer each day, he will leave her broken and bleeding. He doesn't want that. Little does he realize, that is the closest he has come to actual love for centuries.

But, he can't send her away. His need for her grows as the danger of their adventures does. Sometimes, she cries and he tries not to wonder why. Honestly, he knows why, but he cannot bring himself to acknowledge a truth that he has long since burried. He can almost see his own face reflected in hers as she smiles that mad grin back at him and he begins to hate himself, just a little. It's sick, his need for her to be here with him. He has never been alone in this life, nor has he wanted to. He has her, his guiding star, burning away the madness that will someday drive him down the rabbit hole.

He takes her hand and she girlishly accepts it as they run through years and places with an intensity that he knows unnerves her. There is a change, an ending, in the air. A storm is gathering and he knows that they will not escape it. But, he can try.

So they dance through space and time and across an impossible planet and nearly trip into nonexsistence. But, his belief in the shop girl who was once ordinary has grown. She is his faith, his destiny, his good. She is his religion. So, they both fall and he trusts her to be there waiting as she trusts him to catch her as she falls. They dance around each other once again, never touching, and he knows she will die so very soon. In the very corners of her mind, he suspects, she must know it too.

There is lightening in the air and he knows what he has been avoiding has almost arrived. Maybe he will come through this. Maybe she will. Maybe they both will, but he knows, he _knows_, that nothing can ever be the same. It is a bitter truth to swallow, but she is the valient child, his pink and yellow dance partner and that has to count for something. She is what he believes in.

They run and they run and they run as the odds stack higher and things grown darker. The crackle of eletricity and the rumble of thunder drive them on and he never lets of of her hand. He is trying to memorize it, to capture this, the last of the moments that they have.

Then, he has a moment of something that can only be described as clarity. This is better. This is good. This is what is supposed to happen. It is better for her to explode into a thousand different colors than for her to wink out slowly, a dying star. Death is an instant. Dying is for years. He doesn't want to watch that. She doesn't want to live through it, either.

_(Love…is what I did for Gallifrey)_

He understands, sort of. In a single instant, Gallifrey burst into a thousand colors. She may burst into a million. Every facet of her soul opening and catching fire as she burns into his retinas for eternity. It will be beautiful. _She_ will be beautiful.

_(Love…is what moves the stars. Love is what she created herself for. Love…is what I did for Rose.)_

She falls away, towards the Void. He screams, he doesn't want it to end like this, but he watches as she beings to burn so many different colors…His dance partner, his burning star, the one being that he might just love, maybe. She beings to bloom into a hundred shades as her terror grows and she is pulled closer and closer to her death, to the destiny she was always meant to have…

And, then, it is over. She is snatched away and extinguished in a dull wash. He is angry and sad and horrified and…relieved, just a little. He is alone. No more light to battle the dark. He can give in, if he wants. It's refreshing, sort of, to have that option.

He misses her. The emotion surprises him, because he's never missed any of them before. But, she was different. She burnt so brightly that he can still see her, blooming and burning herself out, lighting up his mind's eye. Maybe she always will.

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><p>He decides to say goodbye.<p>

She asks him if he could bring her back. Honestly, he could. He could if he really wanted to. It'd be a bit tricky and dangerous, but it could be done. But, her blind insistence, her assumptions that he wants her with him…it's more than he can deal with right then.

He wants to scream and rage at her…to tell her to finally leave him the fuck alone. But, he's taken so much from her already. So, he lies. He tells her stories about impossible and, of course, she believes him. She was always going to believe him.

He's going to leave her here. It's as good as leaving her for dead, in the end. He'll never see her, his bright guiding star, ever again. But, he knows that the image of her, young and burning and beautiful, is the last thing that he wants to see. He doesn't want to watch her age and wither and finally die. Goodbyes aren't his speciality. This, a tramatic and hard break, is what he needs. It's what she needs. It's what they both need.

He won't forget her. No, he'll miss her more than he's ever missed any of them. She was beautiful when he found her, when he stole her away and showed her how to dance and twirl through time and space. Now, she's broken. Fractured into tiny pieces like a mirror that's been kicked in. He can see himself in some, well, all of those pieces.

He hates himself as he looks into the big brown eyes and listens to the words that she says. She tells him she loves him. He knows it, he's always know, that he owns every single shard of her fractured and bruised heart. He wishes her could tell her that she owned all of his.

But, she doesn't. He stalls for time as he feels the seconds slide away and he is pushed back from her universe before he has to lie to her. He doesn't love her. She was his burning, bright star, but what he felt for her…it wasn't love.

Gallifrey broke him as it burnt into oblivion. His heart burnt with it. Now, he didn't have any of himself left to give to anyone, not even her. All the times that he fancied her might love her as she loved him…They were _foolish_, just like his childlike faith in her. He sees that now. She was human, only human. She was beautiful, he knew that.

But now…he can't be sure, not anymore.

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><p><em>AN: So…as I said before. Dark. Did you hate it? I know that, at times, I certainly did. I dunno why I wrote it, actually…eh, whatever. Review and stuff._


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